Monday's With The Mouse: Cheap Disney Souvenirs

Living Life Where Shoes Are An Option hosts Monday's With The Mouse, a cool opportunity for sharing Disney info and memories.  This week's theme is cheap souvenir options.

Let's face it...Disney is not cheap lol!  And they have a gift shop at the end of most all rides, in the resort hotels, and I wouldn't be surprised if they put them in the bathrooms soon. ;)  Your kiddos (and admit it, you yourself) get bombarded with cute merchandise and the desire to buy escalates with the heat index!  What to do when you are on a budget?  How can you bring home some souvenirs of your trip and not run up the credit card bill?

One of our favorite souvenirs is pins.  Not only are they cute, and relatively cheap, but with the pin trading you can actually get some new and neat ones free!  My ds2 is an expert at pin trading.  He loves to target the "cast members" walking around in coats and ties...they usually don't interact with the public much but still wear lanyards and have cool pins that no one else has snatched lol!

I have a carrying case for our pin collection (not cheap, but worth it) and have our pins organized by theme park, characters, special events, etc.  We like to get pins from the rides, which is especially neat when an attraction closes...what a collectors' item it becomes, as well as a way to remember what rides we enjoyed.

Another inexpensive souvenir is the refillable cups and popcorn holders they offer around the park and at restaurants and hotels.  These are cool because you can actually use them at home and have a constant reminder of your trip!  I have my cooking utensils in a popcorn bucket by my stove, and I use our refillable cups all day long.  We have some cups from every resort we have stayed at, and some that commemorate special events at the parks.  One of my faves is a mug with the cast of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 on it from when the movie was released, and our most treasured mug is one we bought when we stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge when it first opened...the mugs were numbered, and we have #1!  How cool is that?

My cheapest yet most used souvenir?  I nab the writing pens from our resort stays.  Hey, it's called being "green" folks.  Yeah, that's what I tell myself lol.  All my family knows that the WDW pens are mom's and mom's alone. 

 

Finally our most favorite and treasured souvenirs of all...

Dh is holding our precious "memory" from a Feb 2003 trip, and the one waving is from a Feb 1999 vacation. :)

Yeah, I'm just grateful my dh didn't name either one of them Mickey.  Or Walt.  Or Donald.  (But sometimes we call them Goofy.)